


survival of the fittest

by starkreactor



Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie) Trailer, M/M, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Post-Thor: Ragnarok (2017), i pick and choose bc i started this before the trailer, not quite trailer compliant
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-31
Updated: 2018-01-09
Packaged: 2019-02-24 08:18:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 18,370
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13209699
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starkreactor/pseuds/starkreactor
Summary: loki gets asgard to earth and ends up on house arrest at avengers tower despite his efforts. he decides he can use tony stark's help to mobilize the avengers for thanos and the black order's impending attack but half the team are war criminals, some galaxy guardians crash land in central park, loki himself starts developingfeelings, and the tesseract decides it wants a piece of this chaos pie.good thing loki is a master of chaos.





	1. chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> it's been years since i've posted marvel fanfic but I Return because infinity war is about to be that bitch ! this is kinda my take on what could be infinity war [plus frostiron bc i cannot help myself] and i wanted to play with loki's character after ragnarok bc ragnarok!loki is the redemption arc loki we deserve.
> 
> anyway, concerning the Romance: this is kind of a slow burn i guess since tony and loki are still enemies-ish when they first meet again.

Loki had about six years to recover from falling through wormholes after the one created by the destruction of the Bifrost that had lead him to Thanos and The Other, but falling through space was still not one of his favorite past times. While he carried the means to travel through the Nine Realms without much trouble (which had certainly helped Thor’s friends when they needed him during the Dark Elves’ attacks), loosing the control behind where he was going and how painful it would be to get there wasn’t something the alien godling was ever fond of. Naturally, the idea of escaping to Asgard after Hela had destroyed Thor’s hammer wasn’t too wise, but it was the only idea he could think of when faced with seeing how disgustingly similar he looked to her.

It was almost as if Odin had created Loki’s Aesir form in remembrance of the daughter he had banished long before Thor and Loki came into the late All-Father’s life.

So, he fled and it was a stupid idea, as stupid an idea as when he fell off the Bifrost— _let go_ echoed through his brain as the memories crashed into him with unforgiving restitution—and he found himself paying for it by again falling through another wormhole. Where he landed this time found his knack for storytelling and trickery more appealing than the first time, and it managed to keep him alive and even see his dastardly brother again under much friendlier circumstances. Even seeing the Hulk pummel Thor had been a sight worthy of falling through space, though he couldn’t help but remember when that mighty green beast had done the same to him six years prior against the floor in the penthouse of Stark Tower.

Stark Tower.

Loki hummed appreciatively as he looked out at the spaceship that loomed over The Ark. A slight pang of sorrow struck his chest at the memory of the explosions that destroyed the realm as Surtr and Hela fought to their deaths but he would never admit the feeling to anyone else. Sorrow at Asgard’s demolition was a weakness given everything Asgard had done to him during his years of existence; however much familial attachment he had to the land couldn’t overshadow the hurt and betrayals that set his anger on fire.

For now, the remainder of Asgardian citizens that survived alongside the Revengers (Loki despised that name for it’s similarity to the Avengers more than anything else) and the ragtag team of aliens he had picked up over to Asgard had bigger issues to deal with. It wasn’t looking as if the spaceship was going to leave anytime soon, which frankly irritated Loki to no end. He hadn’t committed heroic deeds and fought alongside his now-king brother and somewhat even _agreed_ to help him rule the New Asgard for this petulant ship to get in the way of their travels. Not that anyone on board had a clue as to where they were set off to, but being stopped so early on their journey was a hinderance.

Valkyrie spoke up first, her voice firm and seeping with old forms of magic Loki only wished he knew how to manipulate. “Are these enemies of yours?”

Her question was aimed at Thor, but Loki could feel her eyes on his straightened back as the three continued to stare out the window. Out of the corner of his eye, Loki spotted Thor shaking his head. “I know not who this ship belongs to, but I do know it is nothing of Midgardian nature unless Stark has advanced technology so much in the few years I’ve been absent.” A look came over Thor’s eyes and he frowned. “I would be surprised if he did anything after Ultron though.”

Loki didn’t know or care about what an Ultron was and wasn’t about to ask. “The ship reeks of foreign magics and we know Midgard to have nothing of this type.”

Valkyrie gave Loki a look. “You can detect it’s magic presence from here?”

“It’s extremely strong and horrid, I wouldn’t dare let my own magic touch it in fear of being tainted. Can you not smell it?” Smell wasn’t even close to how Loki could explain how he knew what that magic was—or at least where it came from—but it was the best way he could explain. Much how one innately knows a certain stench to be bad whether or not they have come across it before, he could tell that this magic was not, for lack of a better term, _good_ , in any manner.

Thor huffed. “I smell nothing of the sort, only the scent of burning air from my powers permeates my nose.”

Loki turned to give Valkyrie the eye contact she wanted. She turned back to the window after a loosened glare and spoke. “I prefer not to stand here staring and waiting for an unbeknown fate to jump us. Are we to attack, stand down, or attempt negotiations?”

“Attacking would not be wise with the remainder of our—Thor’s—race on his ship,” inwardly, Loki cursed his slip of the tongue, but wondered if it was better if he had kept it so given no one truly knew he wasn’t Aesir in the first place. Anyone who did know outside of himself, Thor, and Heimdall was dead. “Standing down would present us as too weak to this massive amount of power. Yes, we are weak, but weakness can be played and we should not let whoever is on that ship take us over on that point.”

"So, negotiations?”

“Not your strong point, Thor, I understand, but at least you’ll be able to put your new found diplomacy skills as King Thor to test sooner than later.”

The grin Loki gave Thor was full of humor and obviously accompanied the subtle jab at Thor’s love for jumping to fighting first. Thor gave him a sour glare with his one eye in response, a glare that harkened itself too similar to Odin’s own and it made something in Loki’s chest stir in the wrong direction, but the thunderer lightened it and sighed as he patted his brother’s back. “You jest but remain correct in the process. It’s high time I show our late father how banishment as helped me in more ways than understanding those of the mortal Midgardians.”

The raven-haired god couldn’t help but latch onto _our late father_ even as Thor walked away from the window and beckoned his colleagues to follow him. Even when Odin was dying and calling the two men _my sons_ , thus acknowledging that through everything he forgave Loki and still deemed him his son, Loki found it hard to accept that fact. Thor called him _brother_ enough that the term hadn’t quite lost meaning but also was something Loki knew neither could probably go without saying no matter what simply because what else could Thor _be_ to him. Brother was more than blood, for them it couldn’t even mean bloodline. It was their entire relationship, it encompassed the complexities they fought with as they grew up and strayed from each other, the pains and denials that followed them as they attempted to mend their broken relationship, the fragile truce they stood at now helping rebuild the lost world they considered home.

Loki wanted his brother to always be his brother, that he could not deny no longer. Their biggest struggle was assigning new meaning to the word after centuries of the simple definition brought by bloodline and maintained through love, both of which were no longer. One day they might return to having the same meaning between their use of the word instead of standing in an in-between state of altering definitions, but for now, where they stood was good enough.

The citizens of New Asgard agreed that negotiations would be best, so Thor asked Loki to teleport them across the way into the ship looming above as if it would be the easiest thing to do. Loki sighed with exasperation. “Did you not hear me state that the magic reeking from that ship is foul? I’m not going to taint my magic with that, I’ve already had enough troubles stripping foul energies from my life force.”

Valkyrie quirked an eyebrow. “You never stated if the ship signals enemies of _yours_.”

“As if,” huffed Loki with crossed arms. “I do have many enemies across the realms but I can’t pinpoint this ship belonging to any of them. Thought it would not surprise me if so.”

Something sparked in the back of Loki’s vision and he curiously stepped toward the window once more. Thor frowned, too distracted to notice Loki’s departure from his side. “Heimdall, can you see what resides in the vehicle?”

The all-Seeing Asgardian bowed his head. “I’m afraid my Sight is clouded by forces outside of my control.”

Loki, who had a hand pressed against the window now, turned to the others with raised eyebrows. “Beings who can cloak themselves to even you? I can very well see into the ship myself.”

“Then why can’t we teleport inside?” growled Thor with an angry scowl. “And how is it you are able to see inside without tainting your magic but Heimdall can see nothing?”

The raven-haired godling snorted. “They are letting me through a clear passage in the murky waters of their stench.” He turned back to the window, closed his eyes to focus on the sparks in his vision and let his magic wade across the passage. It was similar to traversing the Realms without using the Bifrost but he was much more careful about how much magic he used and making sure it touched nothing directly on the ship. He sensed beings but knew his magic would have to touch them to form an image in his head. “I can’t tell who they are but there are aliens on this ship.”

“Tell us something useful for once, Laufeyson,” Loki could hear Valkyries eye roll and he smiled to himself, pressing his other hand to the window. “Can you perhaps identify how much of a threat they pose? We have places to be.”

“I’m doing the best I can from this distance,” the sorcerer snapped, scowl marring his brow and lips as he concentrated.

His magic was getting closer to some darker force and he couldn’t deny the curiosity embedded in his venture as the foul magics let him get closer and closer as the path cleared. He was at the center of the ship now, that he could tell, green tendrils of magic itching to reach out and get a glimpse of the creatures surrounding him. Loki frowned, feeling something in the back of his neck start to prickle with uncomfortable familiarity. Why would his magic be so willing to see these creatures? He knew he was one for tasting new powers but this felt strangely familiar enough that his magic wanted to embrace this obviously dangerous one. He had a taste for danger and destruction but this wasn’t like him, not when it came to tainting his life source.

It didn’t take long for the stench to click something within him and he pulled his hands from the glass with a gasp too loud and too frantic, but the fear was consuming him too quickly as his hands started to shake. He didn’t think these beasts had gotten this powerful in such a short time frame, didn’t think they had the ability to thwart the essence of their being to an almost unrecognizable state. The mad titan must have gotten a hold of more Infinity Stones in the years Loki’s been hiding, which meant he was still searching for the others.

Loki felt his entire stomach drop as he remembered what lay in one of his cosmic pocket dimensions, felt its seductive power start to reach out to him beyond the confinements of space, calling for him to use it and alert everyone to it’s presence.

“Thor,” he called out, eyes blown with shock, “Thor, I _know_ this being, we need to go. Now.”

“Loki? Loki, who is it?”

The sorcerer turned to his brother with a snarl. “I said we need to _go_.”

Loki only wished he had realized it sooner but there was little he could do when one of the doors to their spaceship was blasted open and the cosmic winds of space began to infiltrate the quarters. He turned back with frightened eyes, heart in his throat at the mere thought of being near the mad titan again, of seeing those wickedly dark eyes and feeling that lust for Lady Death that made him so eager for the powerful Stones of legend. The sorcerer supposed it was a good thing he had the space stone on hand as it made things easier for teleportation and he gathered all the energy he could to tap into the magics of everyone on the ship and bind them to the space stone.

In the last few wisps of blue-tainted green that reeked from Loki’s skin, he locked eyes with the smirking gaze of a creature he wished he never met and knew that fleeing would only make things worse. No matter what, Thanos knew Loki had something he needed and Loki could run and hide all he wanted and put thousands of people in danger in the process like he had with the invasion to get the damn thing off Midgard in the first place, but Thanos would get what he needed one way or another.

Either way looked meek for Loki’s chances of survival, but he had outsmarted Death before. He closed his eyes and reached out for the in-between spaces of realms and latched onto the strongest portal leakage center point he could, praying to the Norns that luck be in his favor and keep him alive a little longer more to keep Thanos from destroying the universe.

When he opened his eyes and found himself staring down at a familiar tower that helped bring about his success (failure in the eyes of many but he had been so happily successful when the taste of Thanos in his skull had subsided), he questioned if the Norns were truly willing to give him the chance of survival.

Thor’s voice broke through his distracted haze like the thunderer he was. “Stark Tower? Brother, what brings us here?”

“Residual portal magic from my last time here made it easier to hold onto for teleportation,” was his stark reply as exhaustion began to take over. He slipped to the ground with shaky knees, felt his brother run toward him with worry but could care less about the hands that graced his heaving shoulders. “He will easily find us here but he moves slow, slow enough that we can at least find a place for Asgard on this Realm and settle our people before his attack. It might be pointless as we might lose, but I know you love this world and would never let such happen.”

The blonde was silent, gazing back out on New York with his scanning eye. “I will find my fellow Avengers and tell them of what we faced, of what we saw.” he turned to Loki to continue. “Who exactly is he?”

“Dare I say his name, he’ll grow more powerful, he’ll know where I am.” _As if he doesn’t know already_. “But he lusts for a woman—no, a powerful dangerous force of nature—so much he’ll do anything for her.”

“There’s much that’s happened to you after the Bifrost that you speak not of.”

Loki laughed bitterly as he turned to look at Thor. “You never asked, only left me to rot in a cell and pulled me out to use me as you pleased.”

“And then you died, or so I thought until you let our father die.”

“I _did_ die, but I’m good at bargaining. And Odin didn’t die by my hand I just sent him off to keep Asgard safe while you were off galloping somewhere else not being the king you were born to be.”

Thor’s jaw locked. “How did you cheat death?”

“I bargained.” Loki turned away to leave his answer at that and started to climb to his feet, turning to face the Asgardians in the ship he had landed. When he spoke, he spoke to them. “We have landed on the land of the mortals, but we will reach Norway soon where Odin All-Father passed away and spoke his final words. I feel that location to be as good as any to begin New Asgard.”

Thor put a hand on Loki’s shoulder and squeezed, a telling sign that their conversation was not over. “For now, we land in the home city of my battle mates, the Avengers, and I shall alert them to our presence before we go.”

Asgard agreed with their King’s plans and thus New Asgard found home on Earth.

* * *

Thor brought Loki with him to Stark Tower even though Loki was 300% sure it would be better for him to stay with Asgard and not leave the people with Valkyrie and Hulk as their only solace. The thunderer was more concerned about not letting Loki out of his sight though, so Loki’s short lived protests were moot in point. Now that Loki had tasted that mortal sorcerer Stephen Strange’s magic, he could feel it off in the distance and he faintly wondered if the man was surprised to feel Loki back in his domain so soon. The godling frowned at the memory of falling through a portal for 30 minutes—he knew if he survived all of this he would hate portal travel for the rest of his existence—but was brought back to reality when Thor motioned for Loki to teleport the two up to the roof of the tower.

It didn’t take much to do so, Loki careful to not let any power other than his own fuel the spell, but in the back of his head, Loki was also surprised that the SHIELD government force wasn’t on their backs already. He didn’t particularly like the organization, though they had certainly helped him with his plans during the Chitauri invasion, but he was somewhat keen on seeing the Fury mortal again and teasing him into petulant anger.

Instead, they were greet with Stark.

“Holy shit,” the mortal man cowed, crossing his arms with amazement. “I can’t believe you’ve adopted the Fury look. Is your eye really gone? And what about the hair? You look practically normal with that kickass buzzcut, Thor.”

Loki frowned at not seeing Stark in his Iron Man armor, noting as well that the blue glow from his chest was no longer. Almost as if feeling Loki’s gaze on his chest, the mortal man turned to Loki and snorted. “You brought baby brother with you, too? Thought he’d be locked up on Asgard for another hundred years or so.”

“It was to be four thousand years,” started Thor gravely, “but Malekith’s forces broke those chains and Hela destroyed Asgard, so there is no reason to bind Loki up again. He’s helped save us, helped save what remains of Asgard.”

Stark laughed hollowly. “Tried to destroy Earth because he couldn't destroy Asgard, then saves Asgard in the end. Oh, if you from back then could see you now.”

“You state it like I was supposed to let the entirety of Asgard’s people burn and explode from the wrath of Hela and Surtr.”

“Isn’t that your thing though? Watching worlds burn and enjoying death and destruction? Or has little Loki here turned over a new leaf?”

Everything was meant to be antagonizing, Loki could feel it in Stark’s every breath, but he couldn’t muster the energy to snap back, not when Stark looked so _weak_. On anyone else, the dark circles and tired lines drawing his face back would make Loki jump at the chance to tear at old wounds and scars, but seeing this on Stark was wrong. Something had happened on this planet, something worse than he had brought and it made Loki frown suspiciously. Was this the result of the Ultron Thor spoke of?

“Where is the Captain?” he drawled, moving his head to look behind Stark as if the blonde super soldier would be waiting there.

Stark snorted and waved a passing hand. “Don’t know and it doesn’t really matter.” His voice was clipped and hurtful, reminding Loki a bit of when he had first fought the two in Germany. He was admittedly surprised to hear that the good Captain and Stark were back to animosity. The mortal turned to Thor. “What brings you here anyway?”

Thor proceeded to explain the entire happenings of Ragnarok, from Odin’s death to their fall on Sakaar, to Thor returning to Asgard and Loki using the Eternal Flame to bring back Surtr and let him fight Hela to death. Stark nodded at the right places, mute for most of the story until Thor detailed that the entire realm was obliterated and there he paused the blonde. “Wait, completely obliterated? So, everything that was on Asgard is gone?”

Thor nodded. “Everything is destroyed, there is no more of what was the realm of Asgard.”

“The Tesseract was up there.”

Loki could feel his throat clench with sudden panic and he hated how fear started to consume his being.

“Ah yes, it was! But it is no more, also destroyed in the blast.” Thor smiled with his words and then mellowed out as he began to think aloud. “Given it’s the space stone of legend, anyone with the Infinity Gauntlet will be unable to complete it, which is good. Those stones should have been destroyed long ago instead of simply dispersed across the realms. I’m sure the being coming for us was eagerly on their way to Asgard to obtain the Tesseract while Odin was dead. Ragnarok has granted us something good in the destruction after all.”

Something was pressing against Loki’s chest and making it hard to breathe. It wasn’t magic based, that he could tell, but it was gripping his entire being and making the edges of his vision blurry. He took in a sharp breath in an attempt to regain proper breathing but his knees fell weak and he collapsed on the roof of the tower. Thor fell to him with worry, cupping Loki’s paling face as he pestered the fallen god to tell him what was amiss. Loki could barely hear Thor’s words, his eyes lost to something distant over Thor’s shoulder as he attempted to calm himself.

Later on, he would berate himself for collapsing into a panic attack at the thought of Thanos coming for him, and he would hate himself more for doing so before his enemy on a land that spited him. For now, all Loki could do was try his best to keep the power of the Tesseract from bleeding across his pocket dimensions and making itself known on Midgard as he struggled to gain composure on his slipping mental state.

At the same time, his panic attack was ill-timed with Thor’s words and he could feel Stark’s steely eyes boring into him. Thor turned up to Stark with a scowl when he saw Loki’s unconscious wince from the gaze. “My brother is weak from our escape from the madman who came for us. It hurts him as much as me to speak of Asgard’s destruction; don’t assume what isn’t there, Stark.”

Thor just dug a behemoth sized hole to bury Loki in once Thanos came to Midgard.

The sorcerer laughed to himself wryly as he figured perhaps this truly would be the last time he could escape Death’s tight grip. She wanted him, tasted his sweet decaying flesh when she found him after he fell into the wormhole and she wanted _more_ , but he bargained and escaped to Thanos’ hands to be a tool for his capture of the universe. Loki tricked his way out of that to get the Tesseract back in Asgard and hinder Thanos' progress because the horrors he had seen under the Chitauri and The Other, the voices he heard in his head as Thanos pressed command into him, reminded him of how his flesh was being forcibly kept living so he could serve the mad titan in his quest for Death’s affections, he wouldn’t wish that on anyone. Being captured and sent to Asgard would keep him safe from Thanos’ rage and Death’s pretty hands, Odin could kill him and he’d go to Helheim instead, or he could be jailed for all of time and Death still would not taste his flesh again.

Or so he thought until he found himself impaled by the dagger of a dark elf.

In a way, he should have known that being free from his cell would mean Death’s looming eyes were back on him and she would once again, take him under her wing.

He really did die, said his last words for Thor before taking Death’s waiting hand and resigning to his fate.

Again, he bargained. Told her Odin was dying, he could take over Asgard and be the puppet king he never wanted to be. With him in power so close to the Tesseract, all Thanos would have to do is come and it would be his. So when Loki went to release Surtr at the end and his eyes glazed over the Tesseract, he grabbed it. The power was calling for him, needing him, and he couldn’t risk it _not_ being destroyed in case Thanos did come in enough time. How was he to know his sister and that beast would literally obliterate everything in the vicinity and thus make his attempt at crude heroics turn into a gigantic mess? On top of that, Thanos had changed his source of army material, turned to more magic beasts and Loki was sure Death laughed at him from wherever she stood. Her suitor would stop at nothing and Loki was easily trackable from his time with the both of them, let alone with the Tesseract on hand.

All of this simply equated to chaos but at that thought, Loki smiled inwardly. Who was he but a master of chaos? Perhaps not all was as lost as he predicted.

Loki pushed his brother off himself and climbed to his feet, making sure he looked weaker than he actually was so Stark would back off and believe Thor. He gave the man a wry smile before turning to his brother with sorry eyes that he hoped conveyed enough to keep Thor from asking questions. It worked and the thunderer turned back to Stark. “I assume the rest of the Avengers are upstate at the new Avengers facility. Is that where Steve resides?”

“I really don’t know where he is, Thor, and I’m not gonna go looking for him. He doesn’t want to talk.” Stark’s growl made it more like he was the one who didn’t want to talk. Thor nodded with understanding and turned to Loki.

“We’ll go upstate and speak with the Vision and Wanda, I know they will be there as they have nowhere else to be.”

“Why must we alert these _beings_ to our arrival? Would it not be better to stay undercover for a little while before we start bringing attention to ourselves?”

Loki motioned to the gigantic spaceship that sat in the middle of the city and Thor frowned. “You can glamour it invisible, brother, but I need to speak with my Midgardian comrades and let them know I am alive and well. If the being you are so afraid of is coming after us, they deserve to know since we are bringing it here.”

“I’m not afraid,” spat Loki uselessly, if only to try to convince himself more than anything else. He gave Stark a look before turning to The Ark, tendrils of gold spilling from his fingertips before he snapped and the spaceship shimmered into nothingness. Green eyes turned to Thor with a bored gaze. “The deed is done, are we to go to this Upstate or not?”

Upstate was a lot less city and more greenery, which Loki had to admit was more appealing. He had always found himself more in tune with nature, partially why the color green was bestowed on him from a young age. It reminded him of the other Nine Realms and he belatedly hoped the other realms hadn’t been destroyed in the cosmic aftermath of Asgard’s destruction.

The brothers weren’t in the vicinity long before Loki could feel the intense sizzle of the Mind Stone and he unconsciously froze. Thor seemed not to notice, or not care, as the sorcerer’s fingers tinged green at the tips. There was another magical source here too, one he couldn’t determine the exact source of, it was so powerful and mismanaged—no just uncontrolled. He hated it, hated how the reds burned against his skin in a manner familiar to the Mind Stone, hated how too much of this Upstate area brought back disgusting memories.

A giant “A” Avengers logo hovered above the two Asgardians and Thor scanned his way inside the compound, calling for Vision and soon telling some Friday being to let Loki inside the building. Loki kept his magic burning inside, ready to call on in case of an emergency, but making sure it wasn’t touching the energies of this world in case some magic scanning devices were at work. While it may help the Avengers learn how Loki’s magic worked given he was an enemy of theirs, the sorcerer wasn’t a fan of others snooping on the way he worked and it would take a _lot_ for him to allow these mortals to analyze him even against Thanos.

A floating android being seeped through the walls, electric green eyes turning on Loki with an uncomfortable familiarity. There was silence between the three beings, Thor’s eyes on Loki in a weird interested way. Loki’s eyes couldn’t fall from the blinding yellow gem in the android’s forehead and once again the tantalizing power from the Tesseract was eating away at Loki’s magic like a poison. He wondered if the green and red being could feel the pull as well, he hoped his pocket dimension was far enough away from this realm that nothing would happen because of possible proximity.

“You bring memories,” the android’s voice was familiar, but still so human and alive. It irked Loki in the worst ways he wanted at the moment. Red feet landed on the ground with silence. “Loki. You are him.”

“Yes,” was all Loki could manage from his cramping throat, clearing it unattractively as he turned to Thor. “Is this the Vision or Wanda?”

Thor looked at him like he was stupid and in normal circumstances Loki would have thought of a way to stab Thor in the side later in the week for it, but these circumstances weren’t normal and the pocket dimension holding the Tesseract was bleeding. Thor did speak though. “Vision. He had the Mind Stone. He was created by Ultron.”

“Ultron,” murmured the sorcerer before he turned back to Vision. Electronic eyes narrowed and green ones merely blinked. “What memories did the Mind Stone give you?”

“The Other. Chitauri. The Black Order.”

Loki rose a hand for him to stop, a growl on his lips. He didn’t need Vision to relay what Loki had seen after landing in the Mad Titan’s dimension. His timing was appropriate as his arms burned with red and his green eyes snapped up to stare into red laced brown. “You,” she snapped, moving her fingers in strange motions that seemed like sloppy attempts at telekinesis. “You shouldn’t be here.”

“You’re not wrong.”

“Thor, why?” her eyes were pleading, angry but curious at the same time. “You know what he’s done to Tony.”

“Defenestration?” Loki frowned. “He can’t still be upset over that. He lived after all.”

Wanda laughed bitterly. “He’s scared of space, Loki, because he died in that portal—,” she paused as if stopping herself from saying more, then her face twisted in some sort of understanding anger, “—and it’s _your_ fault.”

“My fault?” he snarled, anger burning in every vein in his body. How dare this witch blame Stark’s fears on him. “ _My_ fault for being an alien? For having to come to this damned realm to save my mind from the tight grips insanity had on me? For saving you from that Titan’s wrath for a few more years?”

“Loki,” started Thor, reaching a hand out but it was the wrong move while Loki was insulted and upset.

“Don’t _Loki_ me, you think Stark is the only one scared of what lives on the other side; trust me, he has seen _nothing_.”

Yellow and red magics wrapped themselves around Loki’s head with strands of grreen from his own magic, letting them both see what fears he had, letting Wanda bring his fears to life, see what he had seen in that dark realm where torture was living and death was mercy. Thor shook at Loki’s shoulders, snapping the three magical beings from Loki’s vision with an angry yell. Vision has a hand against the stone in his head as he cried out, Wanda was on her knees gasping, and Loki was crying. He was shaking, tears streaming down his face as he struggled to recollect himself from reliving those dark times.

Thor was wiping at Loki’s tears, panic in his eyes as Loki rarely cried, especially not in front of strangers. When Loki was able to realize where he mentally was, he shoved Thor away with a growl and covered his face with his hands to cast a glamour for a moment to look better collected to these people. Wanda looked up at him with shaky eyes and an open mouth incapable of speaking. Vision was the most collected of them all.

“We must call for Captain Rogers,” he stated, “this is not something we can defeat on our own.”

“It’s not,” agreed Loki in a somber tone. “Thor and I must get our people to safety first. We have lost _everything_ and I will not let the Titan take this away so fast.”

A fond smile dressed Thor’s lips as he patted his brother’s shoulder. “We have lost much indeed but we have each other again.”

The Tesseract burned against Loki’s magic and he pulled from Thor as if he was the source. “We’ll be on our way.”

Loki could pretend that he didn’t feel Wanda’s eyes on him or still feel the burn of the Mind Stone wielding android. He could pretend that he didn’t share his worst fear in a moment of weakness. He could pretend it when they returned to Avengers Tower to let Stark know of their plans, pretend like he didn’t know Stark’s fears were too similar to his in terms of fearing what came out the other side of a portal.

Stark wasn’t pleased at the prospect of Loki leaving his near vicinity though, which put a damper on Thor’s plan to take Asgard to Norway.

“You think I’m dumb enough to let you drag a megalomaniac murderous godling across the planet he tried to rule a few years ago?” Stark snorted. “He stays here, on Avengers property where if he tries anything, we’ve got the means to do something about it.”

“My brother deserves to take our people that he saved to their new lands, Stark. Do not think me incapable of protecting myself from Loki.”

“I’m right here.”

Stark gave him a dirty look, arms still crossed before he rolled his eyes and rose his hands in defense. “Whatever. You’re right, Thor. You so easily stopped Loki on your own the first time. Go take him. Let him stab you again and fake his death. That’s all he’s got up his sleeve anyway. Makes it easier to stop him when you know his “tricks” already.”

“I have no plans to do anything to Thor, Stark,” green eyes narrowed dangerously, “or to your fractured Avengers. Do you think I have the time to care about what you mortals are doing when more important issues are making their way to destroy you in the first place?”

“You tried to kill us last you stopped by. You were on the other side. That’s not forgiven.”

“Then don’t forgive. And as I told Banner, my wants change from time to time. In your favor, the want to destroy your pathetic race is low. That somewhat puts us on the same side but only because we have the same goal of survival, nothing more and nothing less.”

Loki paused and threw a glance at Thor before gritting his teeth angrily. The humans here had been able to create this Ultron and Vision. They probably knew more about the stones powers than he did in a more scientific sense at least. Such information would be handy for Loki to understand how to keep the Tesseract safe or use it properly against Thanos.

“In fact,” the sorcerer continued with a dry sigh, “it seems we need your help.”

Stark rose an eyebrow and smirked “We?”

“I.” He spat at Stark’s poke. “I need your help, happy now?”

“I'm not sure happy is something I can be when you’re involved, but consider my ego stroked.” the mortal man turned to Thor. “Go take your space people to Norway and uh, bring Banner up here; I want his story of Ragnarok, too.” brown eyes turned to Loki with steeled anger. “If you want my help you’re going to have to tell me everything with no lies. I will kill you with no hesitation if you try something. It’s the goal of survival right? I know with you around that gets pretty fucking low for me.”

Thor seemed more ecstatic that Loki was making somewhat amends with Stark than coming with him to Norway. The younger sorcerer was admittedly hurt that Thor thought he needed a goddamned babysitter but having Thor out of his hair for the time being was an added bonus. Stark’s words of killing him were also interesting enough to agree to stay, he didn’t know the mortals had created any devices to do so and he really wanted to know what they had in store.

Something that could kill him could very well do damage to Thanos, if not kill his children and members of the Black Order as well.

When Thor left and a de-Hulked Banner replaced him, Stark pounced on the other man and started asking questions left and right as if he could ease out some truth that negated what Thor and Loki had shared earlier.

“No, he came and saved the day,” stated Banner with a shy smile. “It was a great battle really. I wish you could have seen it though. Asgard, that is. Sakaar, too. It’s something you’d love, Tony.”

“Maybe one day,” the nervous chuckle that followed made Loki’s tension start to dissipate. “Anyway, I pass Loki on to you, Brucie. You can definitely pummel him into the floor if he tries anything. I’ll be downstairs, got some R&D shit to work on.”

Bruce frowned. “No suits? I mean I know you’re kinda nervous after Ultron but we still need Iron Man.”

The look that crossed Stark’s face didn’t make Loki all that comfortable about coming to the Avengers for help. “You’ve been gone a good while. Things happened. I got in a tiff with Steve, kinda put this kid in danger. Or he puts himself in danger and I—,” he shook his head and smiled but it didn’t reach his eyes. “I’m a noncombatant these days, Bruce. Just here to make the weapons and fund the program.”

With that, the man was out the room and left the two Revengers in his departing silence. “Noncombatant?” Bruce seemed more shaken by the news than Loki could expect. “He really finished with Iron Man? What the hell happened after Ultron?”

“What is this Ultron?” the sorcerer finally spoke up, a bitterness on his tongue. “Everyone talks of it but not about it.”

Bruce rubbed at the back of his head nervously. “It’s not really something we want to talk about. But, uh, Tony made an AI system, we were working on a way to get an army of bots to mobilize the world so Avengers would stop getting injured. He was wrecked, Tony was a wreck when we made Ultron and afterward too. Thor powered him but the stone in your scepter is what brought him to life.”

“You uses the Mind Stone,” a shudder passed through Loki’s spine and he clenched his fists. “You used that device without understand the consequences of that power? How foolish was Stark to even consider it?”

“He was desperate and I was desperate to help him. You can can the insults, Thor berated us enough for it.” Bruce sighed and leaned against the nearest wall in the penthouse. “Anyway, Ultron turned on us, created Vision as his lackey with the stone but then Vision turned on him. We kinda destroyed a city in the process of ending Ultron.”

Loki shook his head but said no more. He could understand more how Stark would have been driven to such a thing if his fear of space consumed him that much. “Do you still have data on the Mind Stone? From your research building Ultron? There’s another stone on this planet, maybe two, and the Mad Titan will want them.”

“Why would you want it?”

“You saw Hela and Surtr’s powers. You know as well as I do that there is no way possible that the Avengers can defeat someone with those powers so easily.” the Tesseract seemed to sizzle again and the raven haired sorcerer willed the pocket dimension further away. “We need to develop a weapon as powerful as— if not more—than the stone.”

Bruce rubbed at his face. “Gods, I don’t know, Tony probably has it if he didn’t delete it after Ultron blew up in our faces.”

“I can search my files for Ultron specs if you’d like, Dr. Banner.”

Bruce jumped at the intruding voice and Loki’s fingers burned green as he steeled himself for an attack. “Oh, Friday, don’t scare me like that. But yeah, okay. That sounds great, where’s a StarkPad…”

Loki watched the mortal wander about the room. “Friday?”

“The new AI Tony has since Jarvis was used for Ultron and Vision.”

“It’s a pleasure to see you again, Laufeyson.”

“Just call me Loki. I am no one’s son.”

“As you want, Loki.”

Magic seeped back into Loki’s skin and he let loose an exhausted sigh. Part of him wanted to visit that mortal sorcerer who had captured him earlier, but he was too prideful to step down to mortal magic for help. It really was rudimentary works, Wanda and that Supreme Sorcerer has magic they could barely understand. Loki was jealous of the power they held that they didn’t even know. He himself held extreme power in his hands and didn’t know what to do with it. All his life had been about surviving and the one time he was actually living Thor appeared and ruined it.

Sakaar was the one thing Loki missed out of all of this and he hoped he would somehow go back if he survived this chaos.

Exhaustion ached through his bones and he made his way to a couch about the room, placing his head in his hands as he tried to keep his mind from remembering what he had let Vision and Wanda see. It was a vulnerable moment and he shouldn’t have let petulant anger get to him, but it also allowed them to see first hand that he was very much _not_ here to attack this realm. If anything he was running and putting them in danger in the process but they needed to mobilize themselves for Thanos’ arrival. Loki needed the Avengers to get back together, he needed every superbeing on this planet to utilize their powers to the max and defeat this insane Titan.

Loki didn’t know how long he sat there, calming his breath and keeping the Tesseract energy from crossing dimensions, but when he looked up, Stark was standing across from him looking mildly amused.

“You sleepy there? I can get you a room. Originally built this for the team to stay over but that didn’t last long.”

A headache started to grow in the back of Loki’s head, so he nodded and made his way to stand. Stark took a step back, cleared his throat and motioned for Loki to follow him. He kept talking on the way. “Now, I’ve got security protocols set up for you. Basically you can’t leave unless I know and you have little access to anything here. We just want you somewhere you can be seen until Thor returns. How long is a trip to Norway anyway? Especially in that big ass space ship.”

“Merely a few hours, but he would stay to help rebuild the realm too. He might not be back for a few months. Asgard is important to my brother.”

“My brother,” Stark pressed a button on the elevator and the doors slid open. “You guys are really tight now. Anyway, how long do you suspect it will take for the super bad guy to get here?”

“Six months without the space stone. He lives in a different dimension and traveling between his and ours takes much time and energy.” green eyes looked down at pale hands. His mind conjured an image of the Tesseract in his palms and he shuddered. “With the Stone, he could probably arrive instantly, if not in a weeks time.”

“He doesn’t have the stone, so why worry about that?”

Loki smiled bitterly and leaned against a side of the crate they were in. “Oh Stark, if my sister is the goddess of Death there’s a very good chance she survived the battle and if she survived then perhaps the Tesseract did too. Thor is naive sometimes and I wish I was as well, if only to not consider the fact that the space stone is still out there.”

It wasn’t the truth but it wasn’t a pure lie either. Stark seemed to accept his words with little interrogation, so Loki figured he made enough sense. Explaining that he had the Tesseract on hand would be a mess but at least he had this scapegoat in case it’s power consumed him. He could make an excuse about Thanos finding it and putting it in one of his cosmic dimensions even though Thor would see right through the bluff—no one could access the sorcerer’s dimensions except himself, that was the way these pockets worked. Even if Thanos wanted to store something in Loki’s pockets, he couldn’t.

No one else knew that though and no one else should. Not if Loki needed to maintain the fragile trust of these mortals to take down the Mad Titan.

Stark left Loki to his chambers and reiterated his views on how espionage was a no-no if Loki wanted to survive, explained that Friday was always watching, and then made some self-deprecatory comment about how he was keeping a murderous villain in his home before he was out of sight. The room itself was plenty furnished, reminding Loki of how well he had been treated by the Grandmaster after his magics and stories beguiled the Sakaarian peoples.

A tiny sigh slipped from his lips as he landed on the bed back first and stared up at the white ceiling. Hopefully Thor would never ask how Loki managed to be on Grandmaster’s good side, not that he was ashamed of showcasing his interest in men but just the simple fact that Thor would never stop teasing him about it. Loki could protest that he and Grandmaster never did anything—they really didn’t, he only sensually hinted at joining the orgy ship because he needed to convince Grandmaster to keep him close, and sure he put the name Silvertongue to use to prove his point—but Thor would always try to make something up and turn the situation out to be more embarrassing than it was.

Grandmaster had treated Loki well though, outfitted him, gave him access to the ship key codes, didn’t let him fight in the Contest after the first time. It was the first time in a long time that he was living not just surviving. Being here in Stark’s well furnished room gave Loki the inklings of a similar situation, being able to _live_ and not just survive. It was a stupid thought that he could live in the vicinity of his enemies, this was obviously just a bargain between Thor and Stark to keep either party happy enough to survive, but he couldn’t help himself.

All Loki’s life he wanted to be himself and live his way. Perhaps it was foolish of him to think he could live his way under Stark’s careful eye, think he could do more than exist with the Tesseract burning his magic and the Mad Titian on his tail, but he did. And as the warmth that was sleep started to pull at his brain, he figured at this point it couldn’t hurt to be amicable. Trust was a two way street and if he could build even just the most fragile road, that would be enough to live from and that was good enough.


	2. chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> loki’s magic is a force of it’s own.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> im kinda surprised at the attention this has got so far, thanks for sticking with it!! quick update for the new year and again thanks for reading!

Loki woke up sweating and gasping with his own hands clawing at his throat and scratching his skin until it bled. The room was dark and silent, sheets twisted about his legs and hair strewn across his face like a madman. He tore his hands from his neck and stared at his shaking fingers, sparks of blue-tinted green at his fingertips. The Tesseract must have bled more while he was asleep, something called for it and he was unconsciously fighting against it to the point of fighting himself.

He climbed onto shaky legs and let out a haggard breath, too scared of unleashing the Tesseract’s power if he dared to trace what called him while he was so unstable. The sorcerer couldn’t even remember what his dream was; typically there would be some sort of sign in dreams but there was nothing but blackness in his subconscious memory. That only frightened Loki more. If whatever called for him could do so and make him forget about it, if it could control him in a way by making him fight himself in his sleep, then it was either close by or very powerful. He had enough wits about him to know it wasn’t the mortal sorcerer doing this, which didn’t comfort him any.

The scratches at his neck started to sting more and he sighed with irritation as he pressed fingers against the wounds. Red stained his fingers when he pulled away and some part of him figured it would be best to heal himself but he didn’t trust his magic at the moment. A bitter laugh leaked from his thin dry lips and his hand fell limp at his side. His magic was compromised. He couldn’t trust it to not be tainted with the Tesseract and he couldn’t trust himself to be able to control it if it was. Taking the Tesseract was turning out to be one of his poorest decisions. Loki wasn’t feeling regret, but he was certainly feeling useless and scared, a combination that he hated with every nerve in his body.

A knock at the door drug him from his deteriorating thoughts with a quickness he was grateful for. Opening the door led him face-to-face with Stark, whose brown eyes were dark with concern while a frown marred his lips. “Something crashed a few blocks down but Friday said you were having some sort of fit. I watched the surveillance video before I came.” he looked Loki up and down and crossed his arms. “Attacking yourself? In your sleep at that. Is there something up?”

“Magic is hard to control,” was Loki’s static reply, brushing his hair from his pale sweaty face. “Sometimes it’s too powerful for even myself. You need not to worry.”

“Um, I think I rather do given you’re staying over in my home and magic is something that does not sit well with me at all.”

Loki snorted. “You should have considered that before agreeing to keep a sorcerer in your abode.”

“Didn’t expect the sorcerer to try to kill himself because of his own magic.”

“The sorcerer didn’t expect so either.”

Stark’s jaw clenched and he shifted his stance to his back leg. “So this isn’t a regular occurrence for you? Do you think it has anything to do with the fact that Asgard is destroyed? You know, maybe magic is tied to the existence of Asgard and now it’s all haywire.”

“If it were so, then Thor would be struggling to control his thunder and lightning and we would definitely know about that by now. No, this is something unique to me.”

“Care if I take the chance to bring you to my lab and scan you for data?”

Loki huffed. “I wouldn’t advise that; just as the mind stone was unpredictable for you, my magic is currently unpredictable for me.”

“Then there’s no chance like now to check out how your magic mojo works. Let’s go.”

“If you think I’m going to let you analyze me like some lab creature while I’m in this state, you’re thinking awfully high of yourself.”

“I’m Tony Stark, what else am I supposed to do?” the brunette raised his hands in surrender after his words. “Listen, I just need to know what I’m dealing with here, how you tick. Trust me when I say nothing will be used against you as long as you don’t start something.”

Loki laughed but it was void of any amusement. “Trust? Stark, I can easily kill you before you even begin to understand whatever data it is you compile off me. I don’t take to people snooping around how I work, let alone a mortal who is my enemy.”

“Hey, we’re not quite enemies else we’d be fighting to death right about now. You said it yourself: we’re on the same side.” those five words seemed foul in Stark’s mouth as he made a disgruntled face while he said them. “It might have been a while since you’ve been on a team, Lone Wolf, but team members watch each other’s backs when we’re on the same side. In order for me to do that, I need to know how you fight. To make it better. To understand how everyone fits in. That’s all.”

“I’m not on anyone’s team,” the sorcerer spat back, crossing his arms with petty anger. “You’re not going to subject me to being vulnerable in your care.”

“You already are!” the other man was getting frustrated and Loki smirked inwardly. If Stark could get annoyed enough, he might leave Loki be and stop trying to get the sorcerer to do something he didn’t want. “You’re keeping me from helping your freaky ass out because of what; you don’t want to be seen as weak? Your neck is bleeding from your hands trying to rip your throat out in your fucking sleep. I deserve to know why if nothing else.”

“You deserve nothing of the sort from me.”

“Funny given you’re here for my help and data yet expect me to lay over and let you walk all over me. You owe me at least one scanning session for my troubles.”

Loki supposed he could have said no and kept the argument going. He could certainly spend the rest of the night arguing but there was the slim chance that Stark’s scans could reveal something to Loki and he didn’t want to let the opportunity slip by just because he was putting his ego over knowledge. He could kill Stark if it came down to it in the first place and given enough time he could find a way to delete the data the man had on Loki’s magic to keep other mortals from having his biggest weakness in their hands. So Loki nodded and followed the man through the halls, silence between the two as another elevator ride took them downstairs to Stark’s labs. Stark was talking to his Friday AI again as they worked their way through half-finished experiments and floating holograms, different images dissipating with Stark’s hand motions until they arrived at the least cluttered desk in the room.

Stark tossed a first-aid kit at Loki and motioned toward his neck. “Clean up and then take off your armor. I’ll get you something better to wear when I grab my scanners. Don’t touch anything or my R&D department will be out for your blood.”

The sorcerer mutely nodded and bandaged his wounds, hissing with the burning pain. He still had a pit of fear in his stomach at the fact that this incident even happened. Thanos was really coming for him, maybe Loki hadn’t been able to cut all the strings loose like he thought when locked up in Asgard. His magic felt like all connections had been severed, but now he really couldn’t tell. The Tesseract was messing around with him, space magics were always the hardest, it was why Loki was still considered one of the best at traveling across realms because he was so good at controlling them. It was why Thanos trusted him to get the space stone, but it was too much for him to handle at the moment. Feeling so weak brought an inner urge to destroy something, anything, just for the satisfaction of being stronger than whatever else he could crush.

Stark came before the insane urge took him over. He paused and gave Loki a look before narrowing his eyes. “You’re spacing out here, Lokes. Come back to Earth.”

Loki’s eyes snapped up to Stark and he shook his head before taking the clothing the other man had offered. “Apologizes, it takes a lot of concentration to control myself like this.”

“Right,” was Stark’s short reply as he turned his attention to his scanners. “Alright, hopefully you’ve got better control right now; your eyes were super blue there for a moment.”

Blue? Loki froze with the black t-shirt Stark had given him halfway on. Blue eyes, the only way he could ever tell when he was or wasn’t under the influence of the stone’s power. That would explain his irrational urge to be destructive. Loki wasn’t ever destructive without good reason, violence had purpose to him and inflating his ego was not one of them for the most part. The Tesseract was probably trying to get him so riled up he would use it, and that prospect made Loki’s stomach lurch uncomfortably.

“Aren’t my eyes always blue?” he started quietly, hoping that maybe Stark would say yes.

“No, you of all people should know. You’ve got green eyes.” the inventor turned to Loki with a frown. “Unless the green eyes were contacts, though I don’t know why you’d wear contacts during an invasion.”

Loki was mute and simply took Stark turning away as his chance to slip on the jeans the other man had given him. Once dressed, Stark pressed glowing circles to various parts of Loki’s arms and face, humming something nonsensical under his breath before asking Friday to put on music. The sorcerer wondered if noise was the way the other man dealt with being so close to someone who had tried to kill him.

He wondered if Stark was scared of him and maybe in another life, maybe even before he fell to Sakaar, Loki would have been proud to still be someone feared years after the fact. He would have been proud to have someone care about him in such a twisted way that they feared his existence. Thor cared but didn’t fear him, that was never enough for Loki back then. Back then he wanted someone to care because they feared the monster he was born to be, feared the creature they told children to fear at night. He wanted proof that evil was in his nature, in his birthright, proof that the insanity that clawed at his mind was what he was meant to be.

As he watched Stark tap inputs on the censors, he focused on the way the man’s fingers shook against the synthetic material. He watched the creases in Stark’s brow deepen as he smoothed the censors back against Loki’s forehead. They caught eyes, bright green against vibrant brown, and Stark snorted before turning away to assess the tablet in his hand. His fingers were still shaking.

Loki didn’t feel very proud right now with how Stark saw him, if anything, he felt sorry. Wanda’s words about how Stark’s worst fear was Loki’s fault rang through his head and he cringed in time with Stark adjusting a censor on the inside of Loki’s left arm. The man rose his eyebrows but said nothing else, only going about to adjust the other censors as if nothing happened. Loki continued to watch him, wondered if he should say that he too carried the same fears but it wasn’t the same. No, Stark was face to face with the source of his biggest fear, literally, and helping said fear, Loki, regain control of his powers. Stark was doing this to survive, it was part of his goal to save the world. If it meant putting himself in danger or facing Loki head-on with the chance of being attacked, he would take it to save others. Stark didn’t run from his fears like Loki did, he suited up and faced them head on.

The armor didn’t have to be physical as much as it was mental, such as the way Stark currently closed himself off to do what he thought was his job.

Something akin to admiration struck Loki as he pondered over Stark’s actions. Admiration, respect, realization. He already carried a fair amount of appreciation for the man when he attacked Thor for taking Loki and also during their talk in the penthouse with his invasion but this was new. Loki was new. In a way he had figured out what his place was with Thor, figured out his own identity and that he wanted to live because there was something to live for. Seeing Stark after his own reassessment of existence only made Loki respect the mortal man more. Creating Ultron and Vision to protect everyone and everyone not understanding the dark future he was trying to avoid.

Stark as a non combatant member should have tipped the Avengers off to his frustrations—if being front line didn’t convince people then going from the inside should—but then again, Loki could tell the team was split and Stark was almost on his own.

“I can hear you thinking,” the brunette drawled, looking up from his tablet with an uninterested frown. “Speak up if you got something to say.”

Loki didn’t feel like launching into his expository tale concerning his respect for Stark so he shrugged. “What are you scanning for?”

Stark passed him a tablet with a hum. “We’re looking for energy signals similar to the Tesseract or the Mind Stone. You said your magic is unpredictable right now but I’m sure it’s something similar to those energy signals. Else you wouldn’t have been able to use them.”

“And that is where you are wrong.” The raven haired man motioned to the charts before them. “The magical energy from a device can be the polar opposite or almost identical to the energy from its user. It doesn’t matter, the device will conform as necessary.”

Stark’s frown deepened. “So whatever inputs I’m getting from the censors about you can’t be matched up because there’s the possibility you’re naturally extremely different from the Tesseract or Mind Stone.”

Loki nodded. “Though I’ve been under the influence of both, my magic may be more in tune with them than I’d like to admit.”

“Noted.” He scribbled something on his tablet then brought up a holographic chart. “This here is you right now, no high energy sparks, I’d say you’re resting.” He pulled up another chart, which had spikes of input all over. “This is what Friday and I picked up from your fit earlier.”

“You were scanning my magic in my sleep?” Loki hissed, fury taking over anything else his tired brain could feel.

Stark only grinned. “Whoops.” He inflated the diagram and displayed it beside the one showcasing Loki’s standing magic. “Doesn’t matter now, you can see the difference well enough. Your magic was insane batshit crazy. Consuming everything about your body like,” Pulling up a miniature body scan, Stark shoved away the chart and brought the body scan to focus, “you know your brain has autonomy, some actions like heart beating or blood pumping and such are unconscious actions? There’s a lot of things the body can do that we aren’t conscious of and well, your magic went insane and took that part of your brain over. Took over everything. It’s like a parasite.”

Parasite.

Loki wanted to vomit, his magic had never consumed him so much to act like a negative force against him. This was almost worse than losing his mind, losing his sanity still kept his magic intact and still kept him alive but his magic taking him over would destroy Loki’s existence.

Stark seemed to notice Loki’s face depleting blood from the news. “Hey, I’m sure there’s a way to make it stop. Plus it was more like a symbiotic relationship. You know, you need magic to survive and magic needs your body to survive.”

This definitely wasn’t Loki’s magic at work; while he was magic and that was probably part of his Jotun heritage, it was never in this manner. No, this had to be because the Tesseract was trying to consume him.

“I think he’s coming faster.”

Stark froze, hands still in the air as he stilled. “Faster?”

“You know what was beyond the portal. It consumes your every waking thought, it makes your hands shake when you touch me,” Stark seemed to flinch just from Loki’s words, “you can not defeat him and I can not do the same. He’s already come for me again since I lost Midgard and the—,”

Loki cut himself off as the effort to breathe became too hard. It was another panic attack, one that he really didn’t need to be having while Stark was upset and Thor was gone and all his brain could remember was The Other telling him about the worlds of pain he would face if he lost, remembering how the Mind stone burned into his magic and brain and consumed him. The pains from his flesh being stitched back together and melded with fire leaving scars over his skin that he glamored away, the fact that Death let him survive another day just to be a ploy for her suitor.

His hands went to his throat as he gasped, struggling to keep his wits enough to remember to breathe. It wasn’t working though, his mind was insistent on recalling his worst memories, of how his body was almost destroyed by cosmic winds and he owed so much to Death for letting him survive.

There was a voice and hands on his shoulders, he wasn’t alone, he wasn’t back on that desolate moon, Thanos wasn’t here yet, he still had a chance at escaping the Titan’s grasp.

“Loki? Loki, can you hear me? I need you to snap out of it.”

The person had Loki’s wrists, their nose in his face, eyes dark with concern and something like fear but not of him, for him. His eyes started to focus on the face in front of him, noting little things about structure, beauty, things he wouldn’t think of if he was right of mind. Such as how those soft lips would feel against his own, how his padded fingers would feel against that pristinely maintained goatee. He felt dizzy with magic, unable to concentrate on anything other than basic feral notions, the innate beauty of the person holding him and the burning sensation of magic coursing through his veins.

It was worse than insanity because his mind was still his, it was still intact but someone else had it. Something else had it.

“Anthony,” Loki managed to strangle out his constricted throat, finally remembering a name that he hoped was correct. “Thor, I need Thor.”

“Yeah, okay. Whatever you need, darling.”

The hands on his wrists left and Loki felt weaker than ever, curling up on himself as he realized he had fallen to the floor at some point during his panic. He could hear the mortal talking but couldn’t bring himself to care about what he was saying. All of Loki’s attention was back on his magic and trying to control it. He belatedly wondered if his eyes went blue, perhaps so since he lost control with the panic attack. He also wondered if the dream he couldn’t remember was in fact a nightmare, which would induce a panic attack and thus unleash his unstable Tesseract attracting magic.

“Yeah he’s here with me, I’ll put you on speaker phone.”

Loki looked up just in time for Thor’s booming voice to invade the lab. “Brother? Loki, Tony told me you’re having troubles with your magic?”

“It’s parasitic,” his voice was weak but powerful in meaning. Thor could most definitely tell he wasn’t okay though. “Recall how I said I knew the being who came after us on The Ark? He knows where I am and he is calling on me like a demon.”

“Parasitic? Where is he pulling at your magic from?”

Loki grit his teeth. “I don’t know.”

“We are busy making home of Norway right now so I don’t know how soon I can greet you again. If you can, contact Stephen Strange. He’s the best sorcerer on this planet.”

“He trapped me in a falling portal for 30 minutes.”

“Not to be crude, Loki, but you were rightfully on his shit list.”

Loki waved a dismal hand. “Stark can take care of this, he’s already discovered how it’s affecting me. We can work from there.”

“I’ll take the praise but I know where my limits are and magic is one of them.” Stark pointed out. “Where is this Strange guy?”

Thor relayed an address before ending the call with a promise of coming back to the tower as soon as he felt Asgard was safe enough to be left alone. Loki didn’t feel anymore comforted by the call and Stark was still weary with Loki as if the sorcerer might snap. In all honesty Loki wanted to sleep again, he was mentally and physically exhausted but the idea of having nightmares consume him was enough to keep him awake.

Stark seemed unable to sit in silence and tried to make conversation after a few moments. “You said you know what’s on the other side. You brought it but you’re also scared of it.”

“I’m not scared, just not overly fond of what follows.”

The brunette rose an eyebrow, smiling just a bit at the memory from when he and Steve captured Loki before Thor stole him. He sobered pretty quickly and looked off into the distance. “What follows?”

“His children and what I assume is the completed Black Order.” Loki frowned as he looked at his hands. “They will stop at nothing to get the Infinity Stones; this realm is not safe with even one on hand and the lovely sorcerer Strange has another.”

“We’re gonna need more than just the Avengers for this, fuck, if Ultron hadn’t turned on me,” Stark ran a hand through his hair with obvious frustration. “I can’t ask Asgard to fight with us. So many people were killed in Ragnarok, it would be wrong to subject more Asgardians to death.”

“They’d be doing it to save their home. Midgard is their home now as much as Asgard was.”

Stark was pacing now, thinking about something that Loki wouldn’t know as pain shot through his head. It wasn’t the same as when his magic went wild, in fact it was more of a signal, someone trying to communicate but because he was magically in pain it still hurt.

Loki shot down the incoming contact as fast as he could, worry filling his veins at the prospect of it being Thanos or one of his kids looking for him. He didn’t know anyone else who could contact him like this and the invasion into his mind was startling and annoying. Stark was back at his side by the time Loki reopened his eyes and he shot the mortal a wry smile. “Someone is nearby. I don’t know who but they’re close.”

“Fuck.”

The sorcerer pulled himself to his feet and dusted off his jeans, making his way out of the lab. “I’ll be in the penthouse; if this being is here then they will be for me and me only.”

“Not while your fucking magic is trying to eat you alive.”

“Stark, you’re a non-combatant, stay out of this.”

The brunette rolled his eyes and ran to the door as if it would really stop Loki from leaving. The sorcerer did stop anyway, if just to humor the shorter man. “I’m not going into combat by following you to the penthouse, and besides,” he motioned out to the messily organized lab, “you can’t truly believe I’m done building armors. If someone is going to destroy my goddamn tower again, I better at least get some fucking words in.”

Loki laughed, just a small huff of air with upturned lips, and made his way upstairs with the other man dragging him along. He was somewhat grateful for the communication line startling Stark out of whatever he was looking at concerning Loki’s magic; Loki would have to remember to put dampers in his room to mute energy waves and also find a way to delete whatever Stark collected. In the meantime, Loki had to see who was out there trying to find him and put a stop to it.

“Hey,” Stark started in the elevator and Loki held back a groan at how talkative the other man was. And here Loki thought Fandral loved the sound of his own voice. “You said you know I know what’s on the other side of the portal. Did Thor tell you that or something?”

“No, Thor and I are only recently united and we spent our time together trying not to die rather than talk about his teammates. Wanda told me.”

The door to the elevator opened and Loki slipped out with ease, stopping when he realized Stark wasn’t right beside him. Turning back, he noticed the man was livid, dark eyes narrowed at seemingly nothing, fists clenched at his side and fury written all over his face in a way Loki hadn’t seen before. “Where is she?” he asked, but it was more of a demand and it irked Loki enough to be talked to like Stark’s messenger.

“She resides in Upstate, you of all people should know; Thor said we were going to meet her and the Vision there before we left. You had no qualms there.”

“Yeah because Thor doesn’t know what’s happened since he fucking went off to space and traveled on orgy ships for kicks. I expected him to find nothing not to actually meet her. You two said nothing other than some half-convoluted plan to go find Steve.” the man growled heavily under his breath before biting the side of one of his fingers until blood was drawn. “I’ll be back, you said you didn’t need my help anyway. I’ve got a criminal to apprehend.”

Loki often thought mortals didn’t have magic, or they couldn’t properly use it, but as some unknown version of the Iron Man armor suddenly morphed itself against Stark’s skin in the blink of an eye, the age-old sorcerer figured science was good enough. Glowing blue eyes stared Loki down as the armor settled against Stark, who was making his way toward the door up to the roof. “Noncombatant?” Loki shouted after him.

“Noncombatant Avenger, but this isn’t Avengers duty.”

Loki merely stood by the wall-to-floor window and watched the Iron Man armor blast off the roof of the tower and make way toward where Loki and Thor had just been hours before. He looked out at the city with curious eyes, noting how the city still bustled under the dark night. Green eyes scanned the perimeter and he wondered what the quickest escape routes would be if he had to leave without using his magic. On that train of thought he realized he was all alone in this building, that Stark had been so consumed by rage he left Loki alone and out of reach. This was the complete opposite of why the man had even wanted Loki in his tower in the first place, and Loki couldn’t help but grin at that fact. Sure Friday was here watching everything and probably informing Stark right at the moment of Loki’s whereabouts but he could certainly pull off tricks to escape.

Too bad he didn’t quite feel like escaping this time around. He couldn’t risk bringing whoever was tracking him down to Asgard and if Loki had to choose between Stark’s expensive tower and Thor’s rebirth of his homeland, he’d rather the tower be destroyed in a battle. He sat on the couch and decided to spend an hour or so reclaiming control of his magic and moving the Tesseract between pocket dimensions to calm it down. Space magic was such a pain in his royal ass, Loki swore he’d find a way to destroy this thing if he couldn’t keep it from Thanos forever.

He had just tested a few sparks against his fingers, checking to see if they were tinted blue, before the largest window in the penthouse shattered in pieces and he found himself flung about the room, landing back first against the wall as he coughed up dust from the explosion. His neck was burning from his ministrations, probably bleeding again, and the dust was making it hard for him to see. Whoever it was wanted a fight instead of negotiations, so Loki dressed himself in battle gear and conjured two daggers while positioning himself for attack. He may not be the strongest at the moment, but he wouldn’t go down without a fight.


	3. chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "We're the Guardians of the Galaxy," chirped the human, "and we crash landed on Earth trying to finish a mission."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay, here we are: chapter 3! im on a choir tour right now so i havent been able to write as much as i'd like to, but i've got the time to at least post a quick update to get the story moving on!
> 
> until next time!

As Loki held his daggers tightly and looked about the room, he couldn’t deny his war god heritage and try to say that he wasn’t always excited to be spilling blood as much as the next Asgardian. He may use magic more often than not to attack, which made him look weaker in the eyes of many warriors, but he was still as bloodlusted as the rest of the lot. Thor may have won the crowd with his thundering hammer but Loki could deal death to many while using daggers as much as Thor could with any large weapon. Not having access to magic didn't make Loki as weak as Stark kept assuming him to be, at least not when it came to battle.

Two red sparks shot toward Loki and he ducked away from them, launching himself across the glass littered floor in an attempt to seek where his enemy stood. There was a flash of a tail somewhere by the bar and the god swung a dagger toward the built in cabinet, slashing through the alcohols and wood until they fell down onto whatever was behind the counter. A creature started cursing in the filthiest ways that made even Loki blink but he was pulled from his stupor by two more sparks making their way toward him. The sorcerer wanted to conjure something more substantial but his magic couldn’t be trusted. He already used more than he should have by summoning his armor and the daggers in his hand, anything more might consume him, which he could not have happen right now while under attack.

In the back of his head, Loki wondered if his attackers waited until they knew Stark was gone to attack, thinking Loki was probably weakened if he had to resort to hiding with his enemies. It lit further fury in him to think someone found him unable to fight just because he was at this tower. Loki caught himself before he summoned a staff, noting that the Tesseract’s seductive power was trying to get him to use more magic than he could currently handle. He hated feeling so powerful but unable to use it to protect himself; this was going to become a major annoyance if people kept attacking him while in this state.

Loki ran across the wooden floors and fell to a slide once he caught armored feet on the other side of some article of furniture. He threw his other dagger at said feet and smirked to himself at the cry that escaped the attacker’s lips, standing up with a flourish of his cape where he grabbed two more daggers and situated himself in a fighting stance for whoever would reveal themselves to him. Feeling someone behind him, Loki turned and struck out with his weapons, ducking a counter attack and twisting around to react to the blow. He caught the green skinned creature’s wrist and threw them into the nearest wall, bounding after them in the dusty haze caused by the impact.

Hearing the cock of a gun pulled Loki away from the being he had smashed against the wall and he ran and skidded to the side to avoid the gigantic bullet that made it’s mark in a pillar near the window, crumbling to dust in an instant. “You were going to shoot me with _that_?” he cried out in horror, knowing it wouldn’t have killed him but the blow was certainly going to hurt.

“It’s like a stun gun to you, don’t act like you were gonna die,” someone snarked back, Loki turning in a rush to find a smirking raccoon holding a gun at least three times his size. “Can’t believe we found you so easily after the crash.”

Loki dodged another bullet which went through where the window used to be and found it’s home in the building across the street. The sorcerer turned from the wreckage and snarled at the creature as he pointed his dagger at it. “Why are you trying to _kill_ me, I don’t even know who you are.”

“We don’t really know who _you_ are but we’ve been hired to find you, so please, let us finish our job.”

Loki just barely managed to escape another bullet pointed his way, tucking himself into a somersault before rolling to his feet with a growl, long black hair falling in curls about his face as he collected himself for one more moment. “You are going to regret—”

“Yeah, yeah, regret attacking you for whatever reason I don’t really care about.” another bullet from the gigantic stun gun brushed against Loki’s right arm and left it numb, causing him to drop the dagger that was in his right hand in an instant. He cursed and ran back toward where the giant window used to be, grabbing a shard of glass to cut into his palm. He needed the blood to maybe work on a temporary healing spell, keeping his arm alive for just a few minutes more to put an end to this attack.

“Rocket, watch it with the gun for fucks sake, this is a Stark tower!”

Loki turned from wiping his blood across the back of his hand, stepping back with a burning feeling in his gut at what stood before him. Rather, floated by the contraptions on his boots, hands fitted with dual-bullet blaster guns and a mask with red circles for the eye holes. He was dressed in a brown jacket, blue jeans, he looked and felt human but there was something about him that tickled at Loki in an uncomfortable way. Moonlight struck him in the oddest way that made him look ethereal. “Who are you,” Loki asked, analyzing the position of the guns to figure out if he could launch himself at the other man or at least toward the Rocket raccoon creature for accidental crossfire between each other.

“Star-Lord,” the man said, pressing a button on his mask that melted it away to reveal his face. Loki _really_ didn’t know who this person was, why a human had this alien technology not even he knew about. It was closer to Sakaarian technology than Earth or Asgard, which made the god wonder if this Star-Lord came from a different galaxy. “Now I would really like it if we didn’t completely demolish a Stark tower so can you just, raise your hands in surrender and let us take you in?”

Loki replied by throwing his dagger at the stun gun in the man’s left hand, causing it to blow up in his grip and give the sorcerer enough distraction to get out of reach from Rocket and Star-Lord. While running about the room, he tried to think of who he could have upset enough to track him down to Earth and be so hellbent on capturing him, but he really couldn’t come up with a name. Didn’t even know there was a bounty on his head, which made him smirk a little as he skirted to a stop by the couch and dodged another few bullets.

Finishing the rune in blood on the back of his right hand, Loki sighed as he felt his magic begin to naturally repair the nerve damage, pausing in his half-completed turning motion when his magic picked up a similar frequency to the communication signal that brought him up to the penthouse in the first place. Someone in this renegade band of misfits had the ability to send magical communication signals to beings they didn’t even know? Or maybe Loki’s magic energy outputs were at a frequency that equated to communication broadcasts and they were able to tap in to find their target. Either way, it was these people that had found him and they were probably sent by Thanos, though that seemed highly unlikely once Loki saw the beastly tree that stepped into the penthouse from the elevator.

What the _fuck_.

“I am Groot,” the creature roared, Loki hiding behind a pillar as he tried to think of the best ways to take down a talking tree and raccoon, a flying Star-Lord being, and that green skinned creature he had slammed into the wall earlier, all without using any more of his magic. “I _am_ Groot.”

The raccoon thing snorted. “I don’t know what his name is; ask Gamora, she hogs the pager.”

Gamora?

As in, one of Thanos’ children Gamora? The green-skinned beauty Thanos stole from her home planet and trained her to be part of his army and work with the still-developing-at-the-time Black Order? Loki _knew_ her, or at least knew of her. She was a dangerous assassin and if she was still under Thanos’ thumb, she would definitely have the technology to track down Loki and bring him to Thanos. This was not boding well for Loki’s escape plans, she would always be able to find him until he let go of the Tesseract and was no longer a target.

The being Loki smashed into the wall was up and walking. “Are we supposed to kill or capture? I couldn’t manage to build a ring around him.”

“Ring him in is an expression not literal action,” grumbled the Star-Lord with obvious exasperation. The man had now landed in the tower and was putting away his guns as if they already had Loki cornered and could afford to not be armed. “We are gonna get sued so hard for this destruction, I told you once that Iron Man dude left we should go in without fighting!”

“This guy here is a fucking _god_ and probably had that tin can under some spell, which is why we needed to attack.”

Loki snarled and threw a dagger between the three arguing beings, dragging their attention to him. “Who are you and why do you want me?”

“We’re the Guardians of the Galaxy,” chirped the human, “and we crash landed on Earth trying to finish a mission.” He motioned outside and Loki spotted the burning remains of an irrationally large fallen ship. This must have been what Stark was working on before Loki’s fit distracted him. “We were trying to get here anyway so it worked out that you’re here, too.”

“You tried to _kill_ me.”

“Stun,” Rocket corrected, hoisting his gun over his shoulder haphazardly. “I expected you to be a little more magical though, given our contractor; which is why we came in guns blazing.”

“Contractor?”

“En Dwi Cast.”

Loki turned to the new voice and felt an unconscious smile slip onto his lips. It had been a good number of years since they last saw each other but he could remember her so easily from when they first met. It was mostly Thanos making sure all his lackeys knew each other and could communicate to insure successes. Loki was the first henchman and he was still being shaped appropriately after space destroyed his body so he didn’t get to connect much with Thanos’ children. Even still he recognized her and wondered if she knew him from his time with Thanos as well.

“It’s been a while,” was Loki’s coy reply, relishing in how everyone in the vicinity turned to Gamora with shock. “I never understood why he trained orphans to do his dirty work, even with myself. It’s nice to know his plans worked.”

Gamora smirked wryly. “They didn’t. Do you think En Dwi Cast would call on the Titan to help him catch you?”

“You know Dark and Mysterious Viking?” quipped Star-Lord with a sour look. “Is that why you were so eager we take the mission? I thought you and _I_ had the unspoken thing.”

“The unspoken thing is supposed to remain unspoken,” she hissed with affectionate annoyance, “but no, Loki and I were both under Thanos’ thumb for a good number of months. He’s a friend from work.”

Loki couldn’t help the smile on his face as he remembered Thor saying the same about Hulk back in Sakaar. Speaking of, “Why would En Dwi send galaxy protectors out for me? Especially ones trying to kill me.”

“You’re not gonna let go of the stun gun shooting, are you,” mumbled Rocket as he adjusted said gun against his shoulder.

Star-Lord took over the conversation to keep Rocket from saying anything that might get offensive. “Look, he’s just sent out a request to retrieve his god of—what was it Gamora, trickery? Lies?”

“It’s mischief,” the sorcerer sighed heavily and waved a passing hand. “But if Grandmaster wants me back he should come for me instead of putting a bounty on my head.”

“He’s kind of undercover right now because of a revolution among his people,” the brunette human shrugged his shoulders with a sigh. “Anyway, we’ve caused enough destruction for a day, can we please get you back to your sugar daddy?”

“My _what_?” screeched Loki, his face blossoming red with unkempt embarrassment.  “What in all nine realms gives you that idea?”

“He sounded quite needy and the orgy ships definitely allowed us to connect the dots on why he would want you back.” Drax rubbed at his chin with serious thought. “He called you _Silvertongue_ and I truly believed you to have a silver tongue but it is pink as any other humanoid being. What did he mean?”

“By the Norns,” groaned Loki as he rubbed at his temples. Why the hell would Grandmaster be after him though? Certainly not just because Loki was a pretty play thing as Star-Lord stated. “This doesn’t explain why he would send _you_ maniacs after me.”

Star-Lord looked Loki up and down in a way that had Loki coughing awkwardly and turning to stare at the damaged wall. The man spoke up with a sly drawl, “I mean talk about the one that got away; I’d hire us to get you back, too.”

“Quill!” Gamora snapped, shoving the man with her elbow. She gave Loki an apologetic look that steeled to serious business a moment later. “It doesn’t matter because either way we’re here to take you back and it has nothing to do with Thanos. We will fight you to get you where you’re needed.”

“You’ve crash landed in the middle of a city, how do you expect to get me to Sakaar?”

Rocket opened his mouth to say something but he was suddenly shot across the penthouse by a repulsor beam. Loki whirled around and couldn’t help the arrogant smile that donned his face at the sight of the Iron Man armor. Stark touched down with repulsors charged and palms pointed at Quill and Gamora, who had brandished their own weapons. “I leave for, like, an hour and my penthouse gets _trashed_. Please give me three reasons why I shouldn’t arrest you lot right here and now.“ he seemingly collected himself before recharging his repulsors for the intimidating sound effect. “Who the fuck are you and what are doing with my stuff?”

“They’re galaxy guardians.” Loki spoke up, crossing his arms as he stepped just a bit closer to Stark. “They come from a galaxy different than this one, else you would probably know of them already. Either way, I’ve been deemed worthy for a pick up.”

Stark flipped up his faceplate with a scowl as he glared at Loki. “You are really a handful, aren’t you?”

The sorcerer shrugged. “They were the ones who contacted me but the Titan is not involved. Unfortunately, En Dwi wants me back.”

“En Dwi?”

“Grandmaster.” Loki crossed his arms with a frown. “I really can’t think of why he’d want me back when his people are revolting him for his Contest.”

“You’re a prince, right?” started Gamora with knowing eyes. “Maybe he wanted you back to take the throne. Since you two are close, it could almost be like he’s back on the throne again.”

Loki bit at his bottom lip at the fact that he had sort of planned on taking over Sakaar himself, through killing Grandmaster given his popularity with the people were so low and Sakaar much preferred Loki anyway. Even though Grandmaster was an immortal, there were ways to at least banish him forever if Loki couldn’t kill him. Either way, the idea of being a proper king, being a ruler for the people without having to pose as Odin to do so, was extremely enticing and as Loki got closer and closer to Grandmaster, the reality of such an ordeal was blossoming. When Thor came, there was the possibility that the two of them could be kings, could hide away for the rest of time and it was such a childish thought but Loki was so happy and Thor was alive and he just wanted things to be _good_ for once.

Still, Gamora insinuated that Grandmaster wanted Loki back for _his_ own reign to continue via Loki being some sort of puppet king. Loki wanted to go back to Sakaar but not to be exactly what he was trained to be by Odin in Asgard, what he _was_ being on Asgard posing as Odin for four years.

Loki turned back to the Guardians. “How did you find me; I know you’re the ones who contacted me.”

“How did you find _us_?” Quill growled lowly, “It was you who pulled us to Earth in the first place, we were totally fine in hyperspace without being tossed around through portals and wormholes. Geez, who still uses portals these days when hyperspeed is a thing; the Milky Way galaxy is so weird.”

Portals. Did the Tesseract somehow run into the Guardians through Loki’s pocket dimensions? He didn’t think any of his dimensions reached out to other galaxies, only other planes like the Nine Realms and the spaces in between them. Loki felt a hand on his shoulder and he turned to look into Stark’s weary dark eyes. “Did your panic attack rip a wormhole through space?”

“Possibly.”

The brunette grabbed at his hair with red armored fingers, growling before turning back to the Guardians. “Alright, when I went to examine the shipwreck no one was there but now I can only guess it was you dumbasses.” Stark turned to examine the damage and groaned. “Oh my god, my penthouse will never exist for more than 3 years at a time I swear to fucking god.”

“I am Groot.”

Stark seemed to have finally noticed the giant tree and he screeched, clumsily stepping back and losing balance but his thrusters caught him before he fell. He pointed a red finger at the tree and yelled at Quill. “What the _fuck_ is a talking tree doing here?”  
  
“His name is Groot and he’s part of the team,” grumbled Rocket as he had recovered from the blow Stark had given him.

“The raccoon _talks_?”

“I’m not a raccoon!”

Stark rose a hand up for silence, walking to the couch where he flopped down and put his head in his hands. Loki was hesitant to take his eyes off the Guardians but he could tell Stark wasn’t taking this particular alien invasion well. Loki was used to weird creatures from all his travels about the realms along with his time under Thanos; adding a couple more to his arsenal of known alien races wouldn’t break his concept of the world. Stark on the other hand was still only human under the armor. Earth was so closed off from the rest of the universe after Jotunheim’s attack, the man had never seen any beings outside his own race until Thor landed on Earth, Loki brought the Chitauri, and now these Guardians that brought green skinned beings, talking trees, and violent raccoons.

Loki could relate to the feeling of having one’s concept of the world completely flipped on its head and he was irked by the sympathy he felt watching Stark collect his breath. He decided to let Stark recollect himself though and turned to Quill. “You’re not going to take me back to Sakaar, even if your ship was fixed. I need to stay here and help my brother prepare this planet for bigger things.”

The elevator dinged and everyone turned to spot a woman with mantis like feelers jutting from her head walk in with another being Loki recognized from his days with Thanos. Nebula paused when she saw him, jaw locked tightly before she turned to Gamora and ushered the other woman toward the crowd. “We got caught up by security,” the half-cyborg woman explained though it sounded more like they had attacked security than anything else. She crossed her arms once she stood beside Rocket. “I see you’ve found Laufeyson without our help.”

“He was pretty easy to track, outside opening wormholes apparently, his magic waves slips right into our communication lines, so pinpointing his location at this tower wasn’t hard.” Quill shrugged with his words, a little cocky with his explanation, but Loki was glad to know how he had been found and figured it could come in handy for masking his magic against other forces. Still, Quill felt odd in that uncomfortable way, not quite human but still obviously so.

“Can I touch him?” the pale skinned woman with the feelers questioned, curiosity oozing from her gaze as she examined Loki. He felt a bit unnerved by her odd request and unconsciously settled into a more battle-prone stance. “I won’t hurt you! I have empathetic powers, I can help you feel better!”

“I feel fine,” he replied curtly, turning when Stark gathered himself well enough to return to the conversation. “What do you plan to do with these Guardians?”

“I don’t--I really can’t bother with the World Council police right now; we’ve got hostages loose and adding aliens to the table will make my paperwork a pain in the ass. It’s already a pain while moving from this villain attracting tower.” He waved a hand toward the intruders. “What I should do is arrest you but trouble is following this bitch around,” he motioned toward Loki at that, which made green eyes narrow with irritation, “so we may need you to hang about for a little long than I’d like, which is essentially every second from now on.”

“They could reside in Asgard for the time being,” suggested Loki, “I know you like to keep your enemies in your own abode but you can’t possibly house these creatures forever.”

“Creatures? Excuse me at least _I’m_ human.”

“Half-human!” chirped Mantis excitedly. She turned to Quill with big wide eyes. “Peter is half-Celestial, his father tried to kill us 4 years ago.”

“Well, that explains your eerie life force,” murmured Loki with a spark of interest lighting up inside him. “Celestial beings are extremely powerful, I’ve never met one in my life as they exist on planes of existence my people cannot reach without powers such as the space stone, but I’m surprised one dared to create offspring with a mortal.”

“Yeah, I don’t know, it’s not that big a deal; I don’t even have powers anymore so it’s basically like this stupid fact about my heritage I’d rather not talk about. Ever again.”

“Okay, topic dropped.” Stark motioned to Gamora, Nebula, and Quill. “First things first, we need to get that enormous shipwreck out of Central Park. It’s quarantined by my company and DODC for weapons analysis but the World Council will be on the news fast and I really don’t want their fucking hands on my shit. Especially while they are completely deaf and blind about Thor and Bruce’s return.” He turned to Rocket, Mantis, Drax, and Groot next. “You all look _nothing_ like people on this planet so you can not leave until I can convince the Council that no one escaped the ship.”

Waving a hand brought up holographic images from Stark’s armor and he sighed like it was the longest night of his life. “Erasing the cameras will take up most of my time. Loki had a good idea about taking you lot to Asgard, but we can’t do that until that wreck is gone.”

Quill pouted. “That wreck has a name, _Milano_.”

“Right,” was all Stark mumbled, distracted by the graphs and charts he was pulling up, typing away at holographic keyboards as he worked his science. “Loki, you made your Asgard ship disappear for a hot sec before you and Thor went upstate, can you do that again?”

“Stark, you know my magic is ripping holes in the space-time continuum; do you think it’s wise for me to dare?”

The brunette shrugged. “Couldn’t hurt to ask.” He turned back to Quill, “You said you picked up Loki’s magic like a communications signal, mind if you give me the tools you had to figure that out?”

“They’re on the ship.” the brown eyed pilot glanced between Stark, who was muttering something under his breath, and Loki, who was watching Stark disable the cameras and replace them with proper looping footage. His eyes soon settled on Stark. “You look too young to be Howard Stark, so I’m guessing you’re his son, Tony?”

“Yeah.”

“Oh, oh wow,” mumbled Quill with slight astonishment. “Oh, shit, I’m really in the presence of _the_ Tony Stark? I mean I was 8 when I got abducted but I definitely remember hearing about all your amazing inventions and you had just graduated from MIT, I think? All the tabloids were going on and on about how amazing you are.”

“Are you getting star-struck on me now?” Stark’s face was unamused but the humor in his voice contradicted that. “Since you know I’m quite the mechanic, I’m down for helping you fix your Milano wreck as well. You know, for science.”

“Oh fuck yeah,” Quill was irrationally excited and then proceeded to tell the rest of the Guardians all he could remember that he knew about Tony Stark, to Loki’s amusement as Stark himself seemed a little flustered by the attention as he was working at his task.

Loki put a hand on a metal shoulder and caught his green eyes looking into Stark’s darkened brown ones. The sudden overwhelming attention Stark turned on Loki made the sorcerer feel unnecessarily inspected and he fought not to break the gaze. “I can take Quill and Gamora down to the ship to search for their scanning gear. I may have enough magic under my control to mask either our whereabouts or at least the people at the site to not realize we are there. Simple glamours that shouldn’t cost much.”

“That’s wonderful,” he smiled softly and something in Loki had to remind himself that they weren’t friends in any manner and this alliance was one for convenience. “Get that figured out, I’m working here and then we have to get back on your scans.” Stark poked at one of the sensors on Loki’s forehead and the god scowled. “Hey, you want Infinity Stone data, I want Loki’s magic data. Once we’ve got all that what we want, go party your cute little ass off with Thor in Asgard. Until then, it’s best you cooperate.”

“Or you’ll do what? Kill me? I’ve yet to do something that would suggest anything than cooperation.”

“You’ve brought a ship full of aliens to Earth; I’m wondering what else you’ve got there that you’re not telling me or just don’t know you can do.”

They stayed gazing at each other for what was probably too long as Quill coughed and started rambling about something Loki couldn’t really care about to pull the two from one another. Stark shrugged Loki off his shoulder and started motioning for the less humanoid members of the Guardians to follow him elsewhere. Quill, Gamora, and Nebula stayed in the penthouse with Loki and once again the sorcerer was surprised that Stark was leaving him alone. The only being here who could possibly do enough damage to hurt him was Rocket with that insanely powerful gun, otherwise once again Loki could easily escape. Though given Loki hadn’t taken his run earlier, Stark could probably bet on Loki not doing so again.

“So, you and Stark aren’t teammates?” inquired Gamora with some speculatory look.

Loki snorted. “I tried to subjugate this world years ago and he’s still upset about it. In return, I’m to stay here until he feels he can trust me to be out of the Avenger’s vicinity.”

“Avengers?”

“Earth’s version of you guardians,” he sighed. “I brought them together but it seems they’ve split apart since then. Friday,” he stated, turning to the nearest unbroken camera, “can you tell me the quickest route to get out this tower without triggering security?”

“Straight through the elevator, Loki. Enter the code _The Iron Avenger_ and that will get you through a secret passage through the labs. From there, you can exit the tower with ease.”

“Thank you, Friday.” Loki said with suspicion, surprised at how easily the AI was giving him this information. Stark had said he couldn’t go anywhere and now only a few hours later he gave Loki access to codes and secret passageways. A fear started to settle in Loki’s bones; maybe Stark knew more about how weak Loki was than Loki himself knew. He still hadn’t gotten a good look at the scans Stark had done, but if it let the man leave Loki alone, give him access to ways to escape the tower, then Stark must really find Loki weak or believe he could kill him if anything happened.

The raven haired man paused at the elevator doors, feeling wholly unsure about the entire ordeal. Something didn’t feel right about taking this route, there was no way Stark would let him out the tower that easily. “Friday, where is Banner,” he called out, stopping the two Guardians from entering the contraption.

“A few floors down exploring the emptying labs, Loki,” she replied a little too cheerily for Loki’s tastes. “I can let him now that you want to talk, he’s found the data from the Mind Stone like you two were looking for.”

“Yes, I want him to take Gamora and Quill, he has better means to deal with them if they try anything.”

“Hey,” started Quill, “we have no reason to attack people trying to help us.”

“One can never be too wary when in a stranger’s confinements.” The god smiled wryly. “Also, you literally tried to capture me 10 minutes ago; Stark may be reckless letting you stay here but I will not accept this situation with ease.”

Bruce arrived a few minutes later, he was pretty unbothered by seeing the two so Loki figured Friday had briefed him before he came. The Guardians left with Banner with no protests and Loki felt like a weight was off his shoulders. He was able to cast a reflector glamor on the trio before they left, careful as ever but knowing using magic wasn't something he couldn't risk using left and right at the moment. Sleep was definitely something he wouldn't be catching up on soon, not after the Guardians' attack and especially not while knowing his magic was acting up. In the meantime, Loki could gather the data Stark had on the mind stone and figure out the best way to collect himself. The Tesseract seemed to tickle with his thoughts, testing against the bounds he had set earlier.

Loki really needed these Avengers to prepare themselves for Thanos. He didn’t know how long he could resist the power.

**Author's Note:**

> [[tumblr](http://revengerstark.tumblr.com)  
> [twitter](http://twitter.com/starkists)]
> 
> happy new year!~


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